Purpose: To monitor all timelines and prevent paradoxes.
It is an immense bureaucracy dedicated to overseeing, adjusting, and ultimately balancing the myriad timelines of an infinitely variable multiverse. They discard abandoned timelines and attempt to prevent temporal paradoxes from occurring.
They also monitor the nexi--those beings in each reality who are absolutely essential to that reality's very existence. Agents are cloned and created as needed, and their offices expanded in all directions to cope with the divergence of new realities.

History: The origins of the TVA are likely detailed ad nauseum somewhere, but they are currently unrevealed.

(Thor I#372 (fb) - BTS) - The TVA badly screwed up on one of their temporal missions, creating the Time Bubble, a 15 year loop.

(Avengers Annual#22/2 (fb, BTS)) - At one point, the TVA designed the robotic Incinerators to keep the timelines clean for them, but when the Incinerators took their mission too seriously, the TVA let them go, causing them to become rogue agents.

(Power Man and Iron Fist#79 - BTS) - Justin Alphonse Gamble, a former member of the TVA, thwarted some of the Incinerators calling themselves "Dreadlox" with the aid of Power Man and Iron Fist.

(Thor I#372 (fb)) - After hearing how the killer Zaniac had been tracked to the 20th century, the TVA reluctantly allowed Justice Peace to travel back in time in an attempt to destroy Zaniac before he could further infest humanity. Thanks to the assistance of Thor, Justice Peace was successful in his mission.

(Fantastic Four I#338 (fb) - BTS) - The TVA hired Death's Head to learn why the Time Bubble did not self-destruct, and to neutralize the difficulty if possible.

(Fantastic Four I#338-345 - BTS, 346) - The Fantastic's Four's adventures involving the Time Bubble, Earth-Stalin robot, and the time displaced slice of reality known as Dinosaur Island attracted the attention of the TVA, who quarantined them to their own time, and they planned to summon the FF before the board.

(Fantastic Four Annual#24) - The TVA was very distraught when Galactus activated his Ultimate Nullifier in an effort to destroy Korvac--primarily due to the amount of extra work it would take them to erase and correct a number of timelines. However, while the TVA possessed the authority to make Galactus stop using the Nullifier, none of them were willing to confront Galactus on the matter; but when Korvac seemingly committed suicide, there was much rejoicing in the TVA offices.

(Fantastic Four Annual#24/2) - An agent of the TVA confronted Reed Richards and demanded he surrender his portable time machine. Richards grudgingly handed the device over to him.

(Fantastic Four I#352) - After detecting Mr. Fantastic and Dr. Doom's battle involving time-jumps, the TVA dispatched Justice Peace and the Minutemen to apprehend them. Doom resisted the Minutemen, and was struck down by Justice Peace, while the Fantastic Four were taken away. (in reality, Justice Peace had struck down Kristoff Vernard, impersonating Doom)

(Fantastic Four I#353) - The Time Variance Authority held a hearing for the Fantastic Four, blaming them for having saved their timeline from being wiped out some time earlier. Mr. Fantastic observed that the Avengers and X-Men (who had also meddled in time) had not been brought up on charges, and the TVA promised to look into that, detaining the Fantastic Four until then. Ms. Marvel managed to use her feminine wiles to have Mr. Mobius grant them a tour of their facilities, and he revealed to them how the TVA cloned all of its workers (save for outsiders like Justice Peace), where the Chronomonitors came from, and where they deposited timelines which had been discontinued. The Fantastic Four eventually escaped from them, and the Thing and Human Torch diverted the TVA's attention while Mr. Fantastic searched for a means of escaping their dimension.

(Fantastic Four I#354) - Justice Peace pursued the Fantastic Four as they escaped aboard Casey's Cross-Time Express, but when a new reality wave struck them, Justice Peace determined that since the Fantastic Four's timeline would no longer be registered with the TVA, their charges had been dismissed, and he allowed them to return to their own time.

(What If II#37) - As Immortus' plots allowed him to accumulate greater amounts of temporal energy, an agent of the TVA registered a Timequake of 12.8 magnitude on the Simonwalt scale.

(What If II#38) - The TVA was distraught when Immortus seemingly destroyed the Time Keepers. There was much laying of blame, but as the Time Zone Manager was on vacation, no one was sure what to do.

(What If II#39) - One of the Deputy Secretaries summoned Uatu the Watcher to discuss the risks of Immortus--who had become a quantum temporal wave--to reorder the entire multiverse to make himself master of all time. Various TVA Deputy Secretaries came up with several ineffective strategies to halt Immortus, such as the spreading of anti-Immortus slogans and leaflets. Another Deputy Secretary sent a quartet of agents--Dr. Doom of Earth-Fantastic Five: Spider-Man, Irondroid of Earth-Ultravision, Thor of Earth-Seth Conquered Asgard, Wolverine of Earth-Wolverine Lord of Vampires Survived--to try to alter Immortus' origins, but they, too, met with failure.
Uatu recommended that they target Nathaniel Richards of Other Earth before he ever became Rama-Tut or any of his temporal counterparts. A Deputy Secretary recommended the use of the Saturnyne Symbiont--a chronosynclastic nucleus designed by the scientists of omniversal majestrix Saturnyne, whose function was to weaken an organism's natural resistance to time energy. Implanted within Richards, this would make it impossible for him to store the nexus power and thus prevent him from becoming a temporal quantum wave. Uatu suggested sending the Reed Richards Rocket Group--alternate Fantastic Four counterparts who had never gained their powers--to facilitate Richards' exposure to the Symbiont. However, the deputy secretary instead decided to send the more powerful Fantastic Four of Earth-Fantastic Four - Alternate Powers. This group failed, as their imposing nature made Richards' distrust them, and Richards' used advanced weaponry to slay them all. Mobius then agreed to Uatu's original proposal, and the Rocket Group succeeded, as they appeared to be less threatening, and Richards' agreed to willingly take the Symbiont, erasing Immortus' accumulated temporal energy and resolving the threat.
When the Time Zone manager arrived, the various deputy secretaries attempted to credit their actions for the successful defeat of Immortus--especially the poster campaign.

(Fantastic Four Annual#27 (fb) - BTS) - In order to prevent upper management from discovering that he had lost a file (the one destroyed by Richards), Mobius appointed a series of scapegoats and terminated their employment. All the while, he sought to discover the missing information and thus rediscover the location of the Earth-616 reality.

(Fantastic Four Annual#27) - Mobius' superior, Mr. Alternity, discovered that a file had been lost, and gave Mobius 25 work cycles to replace it or face demotion. Working with agent Justice Love, Mobisu ambushed the Fantastic Four and sent them to a cell in the Null-Time Zone. They captured Ben, Johnny, and Sue, but failed to recognize the significance of Scott Lang (Ant-Man), who shrunk down in size and tagged a ride back to the Null-Time Zone on Justice Love's star. Meanwhile, Mobius summoned Sue and questioned her on the location of Reed. When she attacked him, Mobius summoned Justices Liberty, Might, and Truth to capture her. With the aid of Ant-Man, Sue defeated the Justices, donned their armor, and forced Mobius to free Ben and Johnny.
The FF and Mobius came to a mutual agreement, in which they would help prevent Mobius' demotion, and he would allow them to return to their reality and leave them alone in the future. Following the FF's advice, Mobius met with Kang the Conqueror and negotiated a job offer, which Mobius then used to lever Alternity to match the salary and benefits package, and to leave the last task unfinished. Mobius then assigned that task to Tesseract, a new junior executive middle manager.

(Fantastic Four Annual#27/2) - A fight between the Molecule Man and the Beyonder generated a literal warehouse full of paperwork for Tesseract.

(Deathlok II#31 (fb) - BTS) - Godwulf underwent a trial and was disciplined by the Time Variance Authority for his use of unauthorized time travel.

(Deathlok II#33 (fb) - BTS) - The Time Variance Authority commissioned Godwulf to capture and execute Timestream for his threats to the temporal continuum. Godwulf defeated Timestream, but gave him the option of life imprisonment. Timestream accepted that option and later escaped.

(Deathlok II#31) - The Time Variance Authority sent Godwulf to the modern era of Earth-616 to capture Timestream and stop his plot to takeover the timeline of Earth-Deathlok shortly after Operation: Purge.

(Deathlok II#32 - BTS) - Godwulf joined forces with several agents, but they failed to capture Timestream.

(Deathlok II#33) - The Time Variance Authority sent Justice Peace to recapture Godwulf, to bring him in for trial and potential nullification. This was a punishment for his failure to capture Timestream, and they planned to nullify all involved timelines to remedy the potential threat to the entire temporal continuum. Justice Peace and the TVA Police Department captured Godwulf, but Siege and Deathlok/Collins freed him and temporarily got the drop on Justice Peace and the TVAPD. Godwulf made a deal to give him 24 hours (absolute time) to eliminate Timestream.
Godwulf, Collins, and Siege caught up with Timestream and his allies.

(Deathlok II#34) - Godwulf and his allies stopped Timestream from disrupting the past of the timeline of Earth-Deathlok. Godwulf then stopped Deathlok the Demolisher from killing Akai (Timestream's past self), explaining that the Time Variance Authority's mission had been accomplished, but further disruptions of events of their timeline would have repercussions from the TVA. The Demolisher, also blaming Godwulf for the events that led to the nuclear war, stole one of Godwulf's time gauntlets, preventing him from navigating through time on his own, and teleported away. Justice Peace then arrived and sent everyone back to their respective timelines.

(Unlimited Access#2) - Mobius and one of his assistants tracked Access as he passed through a number of dimensions and time periods across the omniverse. However, in mid-jump, they lost track of him.

(Avengers Forever#9 (fb)) - Having tired of his alliance with the TVA, Kang unleashed the time-devouring entity Alioth into the TVA's realm, throwing them into turmoil, for Kang's own amusement.

(Marvel Knights 4#15) - Mr. Mobius contacted Reed Richards on behalf of the TVA to inform him that Earth-616 was at the epicenter of a series of chronal anomalies, and that eight minutes of time had gone missing. When Richards set out to find these lost minutes for the TVA, he stumbled into the plans of Ramades, son of Kang, who had come to Richards' era to conquer the Earth.

(Marvel Knights 4#18) - After Franklin Richards defeated Ramades by using the lost eight minutes in the shape of a baseball to strike him down, Mr. Alternity and Mr. Mobius set to work repairing time, undoing the effects of Ramades' conquest of Earth.

(She-Hulk II#1) - To help try the case of Charles Czarkowski, a man who shot someone because he had seen that man shoot at him in the future, the Time Variance Authority sent its agents Justice Peace and Justice Love to supply a jury made up of people who had died a year earlier so that Czarkowski would have an impartial jury. Among the jurors was Hawkeye, deceased teammate of She-Hulk, who was defending Czarkowski.

(She-Hulk II#2) - Justice Peace and Justice Love defended the courtroom when a robot came to aid Czarkowski, and when Justice Peace realized that the man Czarkowski shot was himself, he allowed the temporal paradox to complete itself, forcing Czarkowski to travel into the past and be shot by himself. When She-Hulk tried to warn Hawkeye of his impending death, she was bound by Justice Peace and Justice Love, who determined that she would have to be erased from history.

(She-Hulk II#3) - Justice Peace and Justice Love brought She-Hulk through the TVA's headquarters, and she witnessed several of their captives, including Iron Man 2020 and the Two-Gun Kid. For She-Hulk's trial, they brought in a version of Southpaw from her future to serve as She-Hulk's defense, along with dozens of friends from She-Hulk's past, present and future. Mr. Paradox, Mr. Mobius and Mr. Orobourous presided over the trial. After testimony from Morris Walters, the Wasp, Wyatt Wingfoot, Razorback, the Hulk, Spider-Man, Hercules, Howard the Duck, the Silver Surfer, and Vertex, they showed her a future in which something she had done caused a great catastrophe. She-Hulk finally submitted herself to be removed from existence by the TVA, who brought out a ret-can to remove her from time, but the villain Clockwise hijacked the ret-can and used it to eliminate Mr. Paradox from the timeline, taking Mr. Orobourous with him. Although some of the heroes present were also removed from existence, She-Hulk managed to beat Clockwise, and ultimately won her case by showing how she had touched the lives of others. Instead of being removed from existence, Mr. Mobius placed the Two-Gun Kid in her custody.

(She-Hulk II#4) - As Mr. Mobius prepared the paperwork to release the Two-Gun Kid, he wondered about a gap in her own history from the past February, but She-Hulk only replied that she had been in Idaho. Mr. Mobius then released the Two-Gun Kid to her custody.

(Marvel Adventures Fantastic Four#23) - Chronomonitor 616 assumed the guise of Rama-Tut and traveled into the past of Earth-20051, establishing a kingdom in ancient Egypt. The Fantastic Four of that reality encountered him in the past and were at first tricked into assisting him, but when they realized he was evil turned against him. 616 was retrieved by agents of the TVA who erased the Fantastic Four's memories of the encounter.

(Astonishing Spider-Man & Wolverine#6 (fb) - BTS) - The Time Variance Authority sent the Minutemen after the users of Time Diamonds for their reckles chronological endangerment of continuity.

(Astonishing Spider-Man & Wolverine#2) - When Orb attacked Spider-Man in an alternate future to learn the whereabouts of the Time Diamonds Minutemen pulled Orb into the timestream. While he was pulled into the timestream Orb warned Spider-Man of the Czar.

(Astonishing Spider-Man & Wolverine#5) - Orb warned the others time travelers utilizing Time Diamonds that the Minutemen were coming for all of them.

(Astonishing Spider-Man & Wolverine#6) - The Minutemen pulled the various Time Diamond users Orb, Sara Bailey, Czar, Big Murder, Mojo, Wolverine and Spider-Man through the timestream and returned them all back to their respective time. Only Wolverine, Spider-Man and Orb kept their memories of their adventures through time.

(Avenging Spider-Man#17 (fb) - BTS) - The TVA became aware of the Future
Foundation's impending involvement in ripping a hole in space-time. This was apparently
due to a device that would be built by Bently-23 (a young clone of the Wizard).

(Avenging Spider-Man#17) - The infraction was reported to Mister Oborus, who
reviewed the paperwork and authorized action. Oborus was distressed, however, to
see that the location of the infraction was the Baxter Building.

(Avenging Spider-Man#17 (fb) - BTS) - Death's Head was hired to deal with any
resistance while a troop of minutemen attempted to eliminate the Future
Foundation.

(Avenging Spider-Man#17) - Death's Head and the minutemen appeared
in the Baxter Building to carry out their mission, but also encountered
Spider-Man who fought Death's Head. Oborus prevented the building defenses from
being reallocated and stopped a priority alert to the Avengers. He also realized
that during that time frame, Doctor Octopus was residing in Peter Parker's body.
He was silenced by Doctor Octopus using Spider-Man's webbing. Doctor Octopus
then knocked Death's Head's head off its shoulders, prompting Oborus to summon a
second Death's Head from earlier in the mechanoid's time stream. Kicked by Doctor
Octopus, the second Death's Head went smashing through a window. Doctor Octopus
spoke to Oborus to identify the nature of the threat to the time stream, and then
averted the situation by speaking to Bently-23 and convincing him not to build
the device. Despite Doctor Octopus's help, Mister Oborus threatened to keep
watching him.

(Avenging Spider-Man#17 (fb) - BTS) - It was concluded that
Doctor Octopus's actions had saved the time stream not only from the Future
Foundation, but from the devastation the elimination of the Foundation would've
caused. However, they lost track of Death's Head when the timeline readjusted.
The analyst assumed that a correction was made and Death's Head was eliminated
from timeline 616 (they were wrong, he's fine, yes?).

(Avenging
Spider-Man#17) - Mister Oborus spoke to a chronomonitor about Doctor Octopus's
future but admitted that he couldn't back up the threat he'd made to the villain
to keep an eye on him as it was out of the TVA's jurisdiction.

(Thor I#245/What If II#39 (fb) ) - At the end of time, just before the heat death of the universe, He Who Remains--the last director of the TVA--oversaw the creation of beings designed to teach the next universe how to avoid the errors of the past. However, these beings were flawed and became the the Time Twisters.

(What If II#39-BTS/Thor I#245) - After learning what his creations had become, He Who Remains retroactively terminated the Time Twisters before they had ever been born. He went on to create their replacements, the Time Keepers. However, this instead spawned the final divergence of the universe, as in one reality the Twisters ceased to exist, while in another, the Twisters continued.

Comments: Created by Walter Simonson,
Sal Buscema and Albert Blevinson.

A diagram of temporal realities in Avengers: Terminatrix Objective#3 depicts the TVA's territory as bordering that of Alioth, Kang, and Revelation.

The Time Variance Authority has been described (in Fantastic Four Annual#24) as the Mark Gruenwalds of the timestream. Mobius and the other deputy secretaries (including Tesseract) are clearly drawn to represent Gruenwald himself. Mr. Alternity is drawn to represent Tom DeFalco.

The Continental Op adds: A possible behind-the-scenes appearance of the TVA is in THOR I#439, where Zarrko the Tomorrow Man claims to be concealing his activities from their monitoring.

Time Variance Authority has an entry in OHotMU 2006 A-Z#11.

Possible
first appearance of Time Variance Authority Agents is in Strange Tales # 38(
9/55 ) 5th story http://www.comics.org/issue/12328 ] where they are called Time
Adjusters. Another
unidentified Time Traveler (who posed as UN official and stopped another
unidentified Time Traveler) could also be a Time Adjuster/Time Variance
Authority Agent[ Official Index To The Marvel Universe#1 (2009)/Tales Of
Suspense I#40 (4/63) 3rd story
].
From John Holstein

by Prime Eternal
and Snood.

CLARIFICATIONS:The Time Variance Authority should not be confused
with:

Master Alternity, creator of the Omniverse; mentioned @ Squadron Supreme: New World Order(except that they are possibly both based on Mark Gruenwald)

Mr. Alternity

Holding a position of upper management, he was Mobius' superior. He threatened to demote Mobius after the Fantastic Four had destroyed his files, but after Mobius got a job offer from Kang, he was forced to match the benefits to keep him.

Having taken years to rise from junior management into the position of senior executive middle management, Mobius credited his success to perseverance and not just attention to detail, but love of details...he caressed, sweated, and embraced the details. It is the job that he was born...that is, cloned, to do. Mobius has most notably been involved with a number of encounters with the Fantastic Four and Earth-616. He eventually made his peace with them when they saved his job--and even got him a pay raise and better benefits--after they had destroyed some of his files.

A subordinate to Mobius, he was promoted to the position of junior executive middle manager. His first assignment was to reconstruct the data lost on the Earth-616 (and a few related divergences) timeline.

He was obviously from the same genetic stock as Mobius.

--Fantastic Four Annual#27 (27/2

MR. PARADOX

Mr. Paradox was another member of the TVA from the same stock as Mr. Mobius. He presided over the trial of the She-Hulk, but when the villain Clockwise used a ret-can to remove him from existence, he vanished, along with Mr. Orobourous, who was a later clone of him.

--She-Hulk II#3

MR. OROBOUROUS

Mr. Orobourous was another member of the TVA from the same stock as Mr. Mobius. He presided over the trial of the She-Hulk, but when the villain Clockwise used a ret-can to remove Mr. Paradox from existence, Mr. Orobourous soon vanished along with him because he was a later clone of Mr. Paradox.

--She-Hulk II#3

The Minutemen are armored agents of the TVA used to extract disruptful entities from other timelines, and to guard the TVA's facilities in the Null-Time Zone. The Minutemen are comprised of a combination of clones, robots, and cyborgs. Justice Peace has occasionally led the Minutemen on missions for the TVA.

The TVA have a limitless supply of Chronomonitors,
as a new one is created whenever a new timeline comes to be. The TVA communicate with the Chronomonitors using tachyon interfaces. Each Chronomonitor is responsible for monitoring its timeline from its desk in the Hall of Chronometry, and determines the importance of signal events. If the event is deemed important enough, the timeline is split on that point, creating a new timeline (with the Chronomonitor immediately appearing).

A Chronomonitor identified as "616" once traveled to the ancient Egypt of Earth-20051 in the guise of Rama-Tut but was bested by the Fantastic Four and retrieved by agents of the TVA.

Mister Oborus was another member of the TVA. He dealt with the infraction
involving Spider-Man (actually Doctor Octopus in Peter Parker's body) and the
Future Foundation by bringing in the Freelance Peacekeeping Agent known as
Death's Head.